The Heat don’t just return home Monday night to FTX Arena for the first time since Nov. 18, they return to a cauldron of simmering outrage tinged with tension just waiting to boil over.
Or, these days, perhaps not.
Yes, Monday will mark the first meeting with the Denver Nuggets since push from Heat forward Markieff Morris came to shove from Nuggets center Nikola Jokic on Nov. 8 in Denver.
The incident left Jokic suspended one game and Morris fined $50,000, yet to return from the whiplash sustained in the incident.
In previous eras, Round 2 would have been fait accompli. But this no longer is Lakers-Celtics with Rambis vs. McHale, or Jordan's Bulls vs. the Bad Boy Pistons, or even what still remains vivid closer to home, Riley Heat vs. Van Gundy Knicks.
So what to expect?
Former NBA coach and executive Stu Jackson, who spent 13 years in the league office, with a significant portion of that tenure as dean of discipline, offered his thoughts this past week to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“In short,” Jackson, now a Big East executive, said, “the officiating crew will be on high alert. Not only because of the matchup between the two of them, but also just the tone of the game, early on, which I suspect the referees will establish a mindset that they’re not going to tolerate any BS.
“The last thing an official wants to do is have something break out in their game that doesn’t have to do with the game.”
With all involved having gone to school, Jackson said, on what transpired in those closing minutes of the Nuggets’ blowout victory in the first of the teams’ two meetings this season.
“They will be aware of the previous incident,” he said. “They will be aware of the matchup. And they’ll be keenly aware of how the game’s going to be officiated, in terms of setting the tone, as to not let anything brew, if there ever was going to be anything like that.”
And, yes, there will be more than just the eyes of the three-man officiating staff paying attention.
Jackson said such rematches tended to have the full attention of the league office.
“There were members of my staff that also would be watching the game, as well, along with others,” he said. “Sure, the last thing you want to do is have history repeat itself. I think both players will come into the game with a little bit heightened emotion. That’s understandable. They’re both very good players, they’re both very competitive. So, yeah, it would be something I would pay attention to.”
Morris’ status remains murky, not on the nine-day trip through Saturday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center.
But the incident in Denver was about more than Jokic-Morris. It was Heat forward Jimmy Butler fined $30,000 by the league for attempting to escalate the incident, with Heat players massing postgame by the hallway leading to the Nuggets’ locker room.
At FTX Arena, the locker rooms are well distanced, with security clearance needed to get to the Heat’s space. The teams enter and exit through separate entrances.
But there also is the matter of Jokic’s two burly brothers, Strahinja and Nemanja, saying they would be in attendance. The two made their presence felt during a Nuggets playoff game last season against the Phoenix Suns, in a game Nikola was ejected.
“That really is a security issue,” Jackson said. “So as heightened awareness as referee opps will have, basketball opps will have, I suspect that security will also be on heightened alert, too. Whether it is just keep a close watch on Jokic’s bothers’ movements, they’ll be on heightened alert, it’ safe to say.”
Still, this is a different time in the NBA. Rarely is there a second such act.
“I really felt that particularly after Malice at the Palace, I think from the league-office standpoint, there was more punitive action taken against altercations on the floor by way of increased levels of fines and suspensions,” Jackson said of the 2004 Detroit-Indiana incident at the Pistons’ arena that spilled into the stands. “Over the next few years, that number of incidents had drastically decreased. That being said, every once in a while, if something does crop up by way of a big incident, you need to send out a friendly reminder as a league opp. But it’s definitely decreased.
“I think the players, themselves, particularly players that are the more veteran players, they know what the consequence will be for their actions. And because of that, there’s a reluctance to take that kind of action, lose money and lose games and playing time. So I do think that it changed back from the Rambis-McHale days and even the Knicks-Heat days, for sure.”
